A Royal Night Out

Film & TV

Thursday May 14, 2015 Comments

Comments Print article

It’s VE Day in London and everyone wants to celebrate. The streets are alive with revellers and jubilant crowds clamour at the gates of Buckingham Palace. Inside, the two young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, beg their parents to let them join the party.

Queen Elizabeth (better known now as the Queen Mother) sensibly says “no”, but their father can’t resist their pleas. The King is preoccupied with rehearsing his speech to the nation and just wants a little peace in the Palace.

This much is apparently true – the princesses, then aged only 19 and 14, did leave the Palace on VE (Victory in Europe) night to attend the Victory Party at the glamorous Ritz Hotel. But what happened next?

A Royal Night Out takes Elizabeth and Margaret on a great adventure through the streets of London, arriving back at the Palace as dawn breaks over the city.

Directed by Julian Jarrold and starring Sarah Gadon as Princess Elizabeth and Bel Powley as Princess Margaret – “P2”, as she says – this is a lovely film. The story is almost certainly a complete fiction but it is beautifully told.

Emily Watson is charming as Queen Elizabeth and Jack Reynor plays the quintessential working-class boy back from the frontline. There are some wonderful minor characters, too – the campy footman, the nightclub spiv, and the tossy toff.

But the absolute star of the show is Rupert Everett as King George Vl. Everett plays down the King’s famous stammer (thankfully!) and gives him a delightful humanity and a great sense of humour.

We’ll probably never know what the princesses really did on that historic night – it’s not disclosed in any of the royal books I’ve read – but this is certainly an adventure fit for a Queen.

Make a comment View comment guidelines

Jump to next article

Support local arts journalism

Your support will help us continue the important work of InReview in publishing free professional journalism that celebrates, interrogates and amplifies arts and culture in South Australia.

Donate Here

Comments

Show comments

Will my comment be published? Read the guidelines.

. You are free to republish the text and graphics contained in this article online and in print, on the condition that you follow our republishing guidelines.

You must attribute the author and note prominently that the article was originally published by InReview. You must also inlude a link to InReview. Please note that images are not generally included in this creative commons licence as in most cases we are not the copyright owner. However, if the image has an InReview photographer credit or is marked as “supplied”, you are free to republish it with the appropriate credits.

We recommend you set the canonical link of this content to https://inreview.com.au/inreview/film/2015/05/14/a-royal-night-out/ to insure that your SEO is not penalised.

<h1>A Royal Night Out</h1>

<address><a href="https://inreview.com.au/contributors/diana-carroll/" class="author">Diana Carroll</a></address>
											
							It’s VE Day in London and everyone wants to celebrate.  The streets are alive with revellers and jubilant crowds clamour at the gates of Buckingham Palace.  Inside, the two young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, beg their parents to let them join the party.
Queen Elizabeth (better known now as the Queen Mother) sensibly says “no”, but their father can’t resist their pleas.  The King is preoccupied with rehearsing his speech to the nation and just wants a little peace in the Palace.
This much is apparently true – the princesses, then aged only 19 and 14, did leave the Palace on VE (Victory in Europe) night to attend the Victory Party at the glamorous Ritz Hotel.   But what happened next?
A Royal Night Out takes Elizabeth and Margaret on a great adventure through the streets of London, arriving back at the Palace as dawn breaks over the city.
<a href="http://indaily.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/royalnightout-2-z.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-40040" src="https://indaily.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/royalnightout-2-z.jpg" alt="royalnightout-2--z" width="650" height="423" /></a>
Directed by Julian Jarrold and starring Sarah Gadon as Princess Elizabeth and Bel Powley as Princess Margaret – “P2”, as she says – this is a lovely film. The story is almost certainly a complete fiction but it is beautifully told.
Emily Watson is charming as Queen Elizabeth and Jack Reynor plays the quintessential working-class boy back from the frontline.  There are some wonderful minor characters, too – the campy footman, the nightclub spiv, and the tossy toff.
But the absolute star of the show is Rupert Everett as King George Vl.  Everett plays down the King’s famous stammer (thankfully!) and gives him a delightful humanity and a great sense of humour.
We’ll probably never know what the princesses really did on that historic night – it’s not disclosed in any of the royal books I’ve read – but this is certainly an adventure fit for a Queen.
 
							This article is republished from <a href="https://inreview.com.au" target=_blank rel="canonical">InReview</a> under a Creative Commons licence. Read the <a href="https://inreview.com.au/inreview/film/2015/05/14/a-royal-night-out/" target=_blank rel="canonical">original article</a>.
							<link href="https://inreview.com.au/inreview/film/2015/05/14/a-royal-night-out/" rel="canonical">

<a href="https://inreview.com.au" target="_blank" rel="noopener">InReview</a> is an open access, non-profit arts and culture journalism project. Readers can <a href="https://artists.australianculturalfund.org.au/s/project/a2E9q0000008PVN/inreview-sa-20222023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">support our work with a donation</a>. Subscribe to InReview’s free weekly newsletter <a href="https://inreview.com.au/subscribe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.
							<img src="https://inreview.com.au/pixel2.png?cc_article=a-royal-night-out" width="1" height="1">

Copied to Clipboard